


Find Out What It Means To Me

by Zahri



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Japanese Nationals, Japan’s Ace Katsuki Yuuri, M/M, Oblivious Katsuki Yuuri, Post-Canon, Vast Quantities of OCs to fill out the Japanese Skating Rosters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26746768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zahri/pseuds/Zahri
Summary: It’s Japanese Nationals. Yuuri is focused on trying to redeem himself in the eyes of the Japanese skating community after last season’s performance. The Japanese figure skating community is focused on the fact that their Ace is back on top with a World Champion fiance.(How to feel like you’ve won respect when everyone already respects you)
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 86
Kudos: 350





	1. Day 1

Coming down from the high of the Grand Prix Final and getting to Japanese Nationals is hard.

Yuuri yawns as he stands outside of the RACTAB Namihaya Dome, staring at the entrance. Has it really only been 12 months?

In some ways, it feels like everything’s changed. In others, it’s a repeat of last year.

He arrives at Nationals as a Grand Prix Silver Medallist, the hot favourite to win, Japan’s Ace.

He also arrives as last year’s 11th place finisher, once again unaccompanied by his own coach.

In fact, he hasn’t even seen Victor in person since they parted at the airport in Barcelona. Their leavetaking had been protracted and hard. Yuuri had held his chin high while trying not to cry due to the number of cameras nearby, while Victor had clung to his right hand and repeated basic coaching advice to him that Yuuri hadn’t needed since July or so, interspersed with reminders to hug Makkachin daily to make sure she didn’t miss Victor too much.

As part of the agreement for the Russian Federation to add Victor to the Nationals list before it was officially published, Victor had flown out to St Petersburg with the rest of the Russian skaters the day after the Grand Prix Final finished, with Yakov Feltsman breathing down his neck and grumbling about performing miracles in 8 days. 

Sure, they’ve spoken every day since, but Yuuri is the one who has had to pack up their lives for the move to Russia. And before that move can happen, they both have to get through the barrier of their respective National Championships.

Yuuri shrugs his backpack higher onto his shoulders and lifts his chin. He can do this. 

* * *

Inside the dome is far quieter than it will be later on in the day. The venue is not yet open to the public; instead, little clumps of skaters are signing in, getting ready for the morning athlete meeting and the placement draw before closed-rink warm ups start. Around them, officials and other staff members are finalising dressing the venue, setting up merchandise tables, preparing for the crowds that will descend once the doors officially open.

The space is decorated with sponsor logos, advertisements and banners with pictures of various athletes. Even here at Nationals where last year he fell apart in a splatfest that gave him some of his lowest scores since Juniors, his name and image is still everywhere.

There are banners of him, looking noble and determined and strong. It’s a new picture, from an official photoshoot over the summer, and Yuuri doesn’t really want to think about why the JSF felt he was worth spending the money on after the embarrassment of last season. They had barely seen his new programs at that point. They didn't know whether he would continue to be an shame to his country.

The pressure of expectation and previous failure envelops him. It’s like pulling on a new set of boots, before they pack out as you break them in. A tight, stiff grip on him, pressing on his weaknesses and rubbing delicate points raw. It’s confining, but he knows things will get easier as he works through it.

Japan’s Ace. Japan’s one and only card to play since everyone else retired after the Sochi Olympics, more like. Yuuri had clung desperately to the rankings that the other men had entrusted him with, only to watch them slip through his fingers. Holding onto his own top ten world standing had been hard enough. Keeping their Worlds spots when his teammates were outside the top twenty meant that the burden had been on him, and him alone, to place well enough to protect their second spot. Retaining the third had been a fever dream that couldn’t possibly occur.

At least there were also a few banners for Hiroto Yamamoto displayed. He _was_ the current National Champion and had taken his position as the lead man of Team Japan last season with determination. Yuuri knew first hand how hard stepping up like that could be. 

“Congratulations on your silver medals,” says a quiet voice beside him. Yuuri turns and smiles at Kaori Ito, who looks tired from travelling. He hasn’t seen her since September. 

“Congratulations on your own silver at Trophée de France. I was sorry not to see you at the Final.”

Kaori shrugs, as she looks around the venue. “Seventh in the standings was still a good placement, given the current Russian Ladies field. And both you and Naoko represented Japan well.”

“Thank you. It felt good to have a second chance.”

Kaori’s coach is waving at them from over at the registration desk, surrounded by the rest of her skaters. “I’d better go check in,” Kaori says. “Come with me?”

It’s nice being with Kaori. She’s always been a little pool of calm amidst the younger, more excitable skaters. They’ve spent plenty of time waiting together at press conferences, sponsorship events, Federation meetings and international competitions over the years. “Let’s get our credentials.”

Kaori’s coach smiles at them both as they approach her, laden with their skating gear. “And here is Yuuri Katsuki, in the Senior Men’s division,” she says to the official behind the desk. “Could you get his credentials too? Thank you.” She passes Kaori her lanyard as the official hands Yuuri a clipboard to sign that he’s picking up his packet. 

He peeks inside the envelope and pulls out his own lanyard. Map of the building. Competition schedule. Copy of his submitted performance layouts. Reminder notice from the JSF about the Federation sponsors who he has meetings and photoshoots with over the course of the weekend. One coach's credential - with Minako’s name on it, not Victor’s. He had notified the JSF of the change and they agreed to transfer the pass into Minako’s name, in case Yuuri needs a hand backstage. She won’t be arriving until tomorrow at the earliest, with today mostly consisting of settling in to the venue and the pairs and ice dance competition starting. Yuuri’s on his own at present.

Once everyone is wearing their credentials, Kaori’s coach herds her skaters off to the change rooms to drop off their gear. 

Yuuri follows along behind, nodding to everyone who calls out greetings and checking his phone quickly. He’s not in full competition mode yet, though he’s already worrying about Victor. Despite the time difference, Victor’s already in warm-ups, due to the bad luck of the Men’s Short Program being the first event of the competition in Russia. 

There are a couple of pictures and messages from Victor, along with a confirmation of what time he’s scheduled to compete in the short program that night. It’s not much, but they have a call scheduled for after Yuuri’s closed-rink practice to discuss how it went. It’s more than he had last year, at least.

* * *

Eighty athletes packed into a conference room with coaches and officials are a lot of people for the competition order draw. It’s a riot of club colours mixed among the more sober Japanese national team jackets. They get pairs and ice dance out of the way first - there really isn’t much of a surprise in order when you can count the number of teams on one hand - and then get down to the more serious business of drawing the Mens and Ladies order.

Yuuri ends up in the middle of the fifth and final group. While he’s dodged his usual curse of going first, he’d hoped for an earlier group simply because it would make scheduling easier to watch Victor compete.

At least it means he has four hours before he needs to be on the ice. He doesn’t even need to start warming up for another three.

* * *

Closed practice always has a different feel to it than open practice does. The audience is far smaller but more particular. There’s always other coaches and skaters waiting around, watching what is going on, analysing each other and yelling encouragement. Applause and cheers occur for new skills, for particularly badass moments of showing off that the public rarely recognise as skillful, and for favourite routines.

The mind games start there too. A chance to show off a new jump without confirming to the general public that you’re working on it. A hint at alternate layouts. A tease of choreography changes. Avoiding specific jumps that everyone is speculating over.

It’s also often the last moment for some skaters to blow off steam before worrying about their public image and results for the next few days. 

Yuuri remembers watching from the boards himself at his first Senior Nationals, a 14 year old Junior invited to compete due to his medal. Getting the chance to see the best skaters in his country demonstrate skills he was still learning, as his coach hissed advice on what to watch in his ear.

While one of the younger skaters in the final practice group finishes running through his short program (Yuuri remembers seeing him at Chu-Shikoku-Kyushu Regionals), Yass Suzuki skates up on Yuuri’s inside and turns, smirking at him. “Axel jump off?” he offers.

Yuuri looks Yass up and down. They’ve been competing together since Juniors. “Have you finally remembered how to land one without bowing to the ice?” It’s not a kind remark, but Yass has had a bad habit of putting his hands down on his axel landings for years.

Yass just laughs, placing a hand over his heart. “Ouch! I’d say the same about your salchows, but you’ve been weirdly consistent so far this season. So are you in? It’d be no fun without the Axel King.”

Yuuri shrugs, ignoring the title while absently running a bit of footwork. “Sure.” He looks around the rink, noticing how many coaches are sitting with their athletes in the lower stands. This is going to be pretty public. 

“Hiroto!” Yass yells, waving an arm. “Jump off?” Hiroto Yamamoto nods and raises a hand in acknowledgement, curving around the rink and the runthrough just finishing, heading for the empty judges table. Yuuri and Yass skate over to meet him. Yuuri can see Minami’s bright shock of hair as he jumps down from the stands to run over to stand by his coach. Other skaters move across to the other side of the rink to keep working while they watch.

Yass goes first. He takes a moment to pick up some speed and then makes a 3 turn into his axel, landing with his arms stretched out wide, waggling his hands at Yuuri with a smirk. “See? No hands!”

Yuuri laughs. Hiroto follows, running his short program choreography for his axel entry, then riding a long sweeping edge on his landing, holding it for as long as possible. Sighs and a smattering of applause sound around the arena.

Yuuri carefully judges the crowd, and then starts his approach, building up speed. Might as well. He jumps a giant delayed single axel, with more ice coverage than the other two. A chorus of groans and laughs meet his landing, as he dusts his hands pointedly, then turns to the other two.

“Yuuri,” says Hiroto, rolling his eyes.

“What? I hadn’t warmed up one up yet.”

“This is what a triple axel looks like, if you’ve forgotten,” says Yass, pushing off for his second run. He pointedly uses a spread eagle entry and ends up having to twizzle quickly on his landing after his edge slips. There are more laughs and cheers.

Hiroto starts his next axel from a spiral and points directly at Yuuri on his landing.

“Come on Yuuri!” cries Minami from the boards.

“Oh, you wanted a _triple_ axel?” says Yuuri cheekily, setting up for his own spread eagle entry. He lands it cleanly then slides back into an Ina Bauer for a bit of extra swank.

There’s louder applause. Yuuri knows what other skaters say about his triple axel, and it is nice to be appreciated. He curves around and then sets for another pass, jumping a sequence of three triple axels as lightly as a stone skimming across a pond, landing the last with his arms outstretched, his palms turned upward and a smile on his face. Beat that.

Hiroto is laughing and shaking his head. Yass mimes fainting. “You win!” he calls out. “You know perfectly well we can’t keep up with you when you start chaining them together.”

Just because Yuuri had jumped a perfect sequence of six axels on a dare during an exhibition practice a few years ago doesn’t mean that he was going to do so today. He has to compete tomorrow.

Hiroto’s coach comes up to them with a stern expression on his face. “Are you three done?” he asks. “You’ve got 7 minutes of ice time left. Hiroto, I haven’t seen your spins yet.”

The three exchange a quick glance - _Coaches_! - and veer off to get back to work. Yuuri runs through his step sequence to get back into the rhythm of practice, then works through his quads. Victor had suggested that keeping the flip in his short program was a waste of energy at Nationals, but not using it seems disrespectful to his competitors and country.

He ignores the murmurs he hears from various coaches and other athletes. Most of his competitors here have never seen a quad flip in person before. It’s only fair to give them the chance to watch it.

* * *

“Yuuri!” Victor sounds breathless on the phone. 

“How long have we got to talk before Yakov confiscates your phone?” asks Yuuri, running through his cooldown stretches with his headphones in so they can talk easily. 

“Hah!” says Victor in a triumphant tone. “I told him that as I’m your coach, I need my phone with me the whole time, in case something happens.”

“I’m not competing until tomorrow,” Yuuri reminds him. “You need to focus on your own short program today. How was practice?”

“Everyone’s been looking so angry,” Victor recounts in a delighted gossipy tone. “I think Volodymyr Kiriyenka almost swallowed his tongue when he saw me land my lutz. Poor boy; did he really think he would make the podium this year with that shaky excuse for a salchow? There was no way he was going to finish ahead of Yura, no matter what he believed.”

Yuuri eases his hamstring stretch with his free hand and folds his front leg across, rolling his hips flat and leaning down into a pigeon stretch. “To be fair, you notified the Federation that you wanted to compete less than 24 hours before they published the Nationals list. Everyone’s had to readjust their expectations.”

“Yakov has spent the day with that witch from Moscow glaring at him. I don’t know what her problem is; she mostly coaches Ladies. Yakov doesn’t seem to mind though; he’s sounded exactly like normal. ‘Don’t practice jumps you’re not using tonight, Vitya. Your steps are looking sloppy, Vitya. That run didn’t suck, Vitya.’ I think he was expecting me to be more out of shape than I am. He doesn’t know how hard it is to keep up with you.”

“So, how are you feeling?” Yuuri asks.

Victor hums a little. “I think it will be fine. I miss you so much though; why do our Nationals have to overlap like this?”

“I miss you too,” admits Yuuri, glad he’s facing the floor and doesn’t have to look at anyone else in the room. “It was awful, not seeing you during practice.”

“As bad as Rostelecom?” asks Victor sharply.

“No, no. Nothing like that. Just… I’ve become used to spotting you at the boards.”

“I’m still amazed you can, given the fact you can’t see when you’re on the ice,” scolds Victor in a fond tone. “Now, how were your jumps during practice? Did you do your flip?”

“My flip was fine. I only had two touch downs and I two footed it once. It should be all right for tomorrow.”

“If you’re worried about it, take it out. I’ve looked at the programs submitted for tomorrow; nobody else has two quads. You don’t need it for points.”

“It will be fine, Victor. I told you; it wouldn’t be respectful for me to come to Nationals with less than my best, especially after last year.” Yuuri switches legs with a little groan.

“Being clean is also respectful,” argues Victor, but Yuuri can tell Victor knows he’s lost the argument. “Speaking of being respectful, have you been talking to your competitors?”

Yuuri rolls his eyes. “Yes, Victor. The younger ones have mostly been avoiding me, honestly. I spoke to some of them earlier, but they tend to run away when they see me nearby. I was worried that Hiroto was going to be awkward, but it’s been pretty much like normal. Everyone has been very polite.”

“Just remember that some of them are as excited about competing against you as you are about seeing me at Worlds.”

Yuuri decides not to argue with Victor about how wrong he is about that. One Grand Prix Final medal and a handful from Four Continents as a senior don’t compare with Victor’s achievements. Most of them saw him crash and burn last year, after all. “I need to go and eat,” he says instead.

“I should probably head back to my hotel too,” says Victor thoughtfully. “Yakov’s fussing over Mila now and the quiet will be nice. I might have a nap.”

“Not planning to sit through ice dance practice?” Yuuri teases.

“To get more inspiration for the duet?” ask Victor. “No. The crowds are always too noisy anyway. Some quiet time sounds right for both of us.”

“Just remember, I’ll be watching tonight.”

“I will.” Yuuri can hear the smile in Victor’s voice. “Message me before I go on, please.”

* * *

Yuuri runs into Naoko Sato in the lobby as he heads out to find a healthy early dinner option. She smiles and waves him over. “Yuuri! Are you going to dinner? We have a group going down the street; want to come?”

Yuuri looks over the assembled group. It’s half a dozen of the older members of the Men’s and Ladies’ divisions. The pairs and ice dance couples who would normally join in are all getting ready to compete in a few hours. All people he knows.

He shrugs. “Sure.”

It’s pleasant, going out at a competition and hearing Japanese all around him. He’s spent so much of the past 6 years thinking in English when talking skating. They discuss the latest spate of quad loop ratifications, potential rule changes mooted around by the ISU, and whether Yuri Plisetsky’s adoption of Tano and Rippon-heavy programs is going to affect the Men’s division like it has the Ladies. 

Everyone very politely avoids the topic of Victor Nikiforov’s return to skating, though Yuuri can tell that if he was not here it would be the primary topic of discussion. People do take the chance to congratulate him on their engagement. Naoko delightedly recounts the disbelief in the crowd at the Grand Prix Final when the camera had spotted the pair of rings.

“I was sitting near Mila Babicheva when the camera caught them and I gasped, because the rings glitter so much under the lights, and she told me that you two had got engaged the night before. People just could not believe it.”

“And then Phichit spent the whole of the banquet telling people that we couldn’t get married yet,” Yuuri mutters. Knowing WHY so many senior officials were keeping a sharp eye on him through the event had been embarrassing, and he had had to keep reminding himself that drinking wasn’t going to solve the issue.

Naoko looks amused and sympathetic. “I heard you two got a lecture about proper behaviour before the banquet. Ok, no, I won’t say anything further,” she says as Yuuri looks desperately at her. “But you two do make a cute couple and it’s a shame you couldn’t dance all night.”

After dinner Yuuri just wants to go back to his room where his laptop and the livestream of Russian Nationals waits. But Naoko grabs his wrist and pulls him along with the rest of the group, which heads back to the hotel rather than the venue to watch pairs and ice dance.

They pile into a lift together and someone hits the buttons and Yuuri is trapped in a corner. “I’m on level 5,” he says, but everyone ignores him. 

Naoko is grinning at him cheekily, and he _knows_ that smile of hers. She’d smiled exactly the same way at the Sochi Olympics while proposing shenanigans that the coaches definitely would not approve of. It’s a smile that’s convinced him to come out for karaoke after competitions and to lose their escorts at Junior competitions when they were young. She’d deployed it during that terrible, awful Lotte photoshoot for Valentine’s Day one year, after which Yuuri had spent the afternoon blushing horribly.

“What’s going on, Naoko?” Yuuri asks, because finding out what trouble she wants to get into has always made things just a little easier. 

“It’s a surprise!” Naoko chirps, because she is a horrible person. And then the lift stops and she pulls him out and down the corridor to one of the hotel rooms. Everyone else follows along. 

Hiroto opens the door and smiles at them all. “It’s all set up. Come in!”

Yuuri looks around the room, gobsmacked. Pretty much the cream of the Japanese Senior divisions seems to have crammed into the room, sitting on the beds and the floor and each other. There are bottles of water and sports drinks everywhere, and even contraband packets of snacks that their coaches will definitely not approve of the night before a competition. Minami is waving at him frantically from the window ledge at one side of the room. Kaori is fiddling with the television on the wall and a tablet, which is showing… Russian Nationals? Naoko gives him a little push towards a free spot on one of the beds. “Go on!”

Sure, he’s huddled around a tablet or phone at Nationals with a few other skaters before to watch Victor, but it’s never been a full viewing party like this. Have they organised this…just for him?

“How long have you been planning this?” Yuuri asks helplessly as he looks around at the room of cheerful skaters, many of whom he’s been competing with and against for over a decade. Someone passes him a bottle of Pocari Sweat with his face on it.

“Since you came back from Barcelona ENGAGED,” says Yass, from where he’s sitting on the floor, leaning back against one of the beds. “We couldn’t let you just go cry in a corner over how perfect Nikiforov is and how much you miss him when your fiancé was competing. So. Viewing party. We’ve got plans to make it work tomorrow too.”

“What was the plan if you couldn’t find me?” wonders Yuuri out loud.

Kaori giggles from where she now seems happy with the TV volume. “That’s why we made sure Naoko took you out to dinner. You never say no when she asks.” Naoko looks smug and pleased.

Yuuri takes a deep breath and pushes back his emotions. He makes his way to the middle of the room, as people shift around him to give him space. “Where are they up to?” he asks, as on the television, the camera is focusing on several talking heads.

“We’re halfway through the first group,” reports Sosuke, who’s lying on his stomach while Aiko attaches clips to his hair.

Yuuri settles down comfortably, quickly typing out a message to Victor to let him know he’s watching.

It's… nice, watching Russian Nationals with so many other skaters, and reminds him a bit of watching Europeans in Detroit with Phichit. Around him, people are gossiping about costumes, speculating on placements, talking about one of the Russian ladies who had to withdraw with an injury earlier that day. Everyone gasps and cheers in the right places, groans when a particularly uninspired warhorse piece comes on. Georgi’s short program gets a lot of laughs, but it scores well, putting him in first place.

By the time the last group of six skaters enter the ice for their warm-up to a screaming audience, the room grows quiet. Victor is fidgeting with his ring as he speaks to Yakov Feltsman for a moment, then pushes off for a fast lap around the rink. Yuuri folds his hands under his chin and tucks his own ring against his lips as he watches.

Yuri’s _Agape_ looks angrier and slightly more rushed than at the Final, his clear frustration with Victor’s presence at the competition seeping out into his performance. It’s a new top score for the night, but still well clear of his World Record.

With eight days to prepare, Victor’s short program is an old program with the step sequence modified and a revised jump plan. It’s a solid program – he broke his own World Record with it at the Sochi Olympics. It’s also one of Yuuri’s favourites. He leans forward, watching every step and flick of Victor’s fingers, as his ring gleams gold for the camera.

Naoko nudges Yuuri. “What’s his Free Skate tomorrow?” she asks, as Victor lands his flip to a round of applause.

“ _Stammi Vicino_ ,” Yuuri answers absently. There really hadn’t been a better option. It was certainly what Victor had rehearsed the most, even if he had complained that it now felt odd skating it without Yuuri. Victor was already working on new programs for Europeans and Worlds, but right now all he needed to do was convince the Russian Federation that he was in shape and ready to be given assignments. And that meant a podium finish.

“Oooohhhh,” whistles Naoko. “The duet was so romantic at the gala. I was waiting with Sara and she screamed when the spots changed colour.”

“Shhhhhh,” says Hiroto from his other side. “Wait till Nikiforov finishes.”

The three of them hold their breaths as Victor finishes, freezing in his final pose for five seconds, before smiling brightly and taking his bows with a wink to the cameras. To Yuuri’s eye he looks tired; the smile is the one he gives the media to get them to back off.

“He looked good, Yuuri,” says Kaori from across the room. They all watch Victor sit in the Kiss and Cry as they wait for the results to be posted. Victor kisses his ring then shapes his hands into a heart, leading to sighs and giggles throughout the room as Yuuri instinctively kisses his own ring.

“You’re as bad as each other,” says Yass cheerfully. “Now, are the judges going to reward him?”

“It’s going to be close,” says Hiroto. “The Federation might get strict with him for taking half the season off.”

“He’s Victor Nikiforov,” argues Yass. “If anyone’s due a half season bye, it’s him. They’ll want to welcome him home and reinforce that he's back and on top.”

Yuuri just rubs his ring, staring at the screen. The base difficulty between Yuri and Victor’s programs is extremely close; it could go either way. _Luck_ , he thinks. _The rings are for luck. Please bring us luck._

The scores go up. Victor smiles and waves to the audience. He’s in second, by almost two points.

“Damn!” says Yass.

“So they’re punishing him,” says Hiroto.

“How much breathing room does he have on his base score for the free skate?” asks Naoko, looking at Yuuri.

“Depends on the layout he uses, and if Yuri’s hiding anything up his sleeve,” says Yuuri, studying his fiance’s face closely for more signs of stress. He knows Victor will call as soon as he’s free from the crush of the press that is about to envelop him. “But he’s got a three point gap on the program he submitted.”

“If Plisetsky had an alternate quad, he would have used it against you during the Final,” says Hiroto. “He won’t risk a fall at Nationals when he’s a shoo in for a Worlds spot with either first or second place.”

“He’s very competitive, though,” says Naoko. “And he’s young. What’s Victor’s back up?”

“Getting perfect PCS,” says Yuuri sarcastically. The other skaters just stare at him. “Look, that was his _actual coaching advice_ to me at one point.”

“Putting aside for the moment that Mr Living Legend thinks you can just ask for a hundred PCS at Nationals,” says Yass incredulously, “What’s the alternate layout?”

“He increases the axel combo difficulty. It gives him an extra 1.43 to play with. It’s not a big enough gap that he’ll risk switching out the quad toe for another quad.”

“Hmmm,” says Hiroto, clearly running the numbers in his head. “It might be enough. It’s going to come down to who’s cleaner, especially with the way Plisetsky’s been throwing around Tanos and Rippons.”

“I believe he’s got it,” says Naoko. “I believe in the power of love, Yuuri!”

Yuuri fiddles with his drink and takes a sip so that he can ignore the teasing grins he gets. This is why he shouldn’t be allowed to stray off the standard media interview topics in front of a camera. 

The last skater in the division finishes his program (with his axel downgraded to a double, he’s not competition for any sort of real placing). Hiroto looks around the room. “All right, we’re done for now. I know some of you have a 5am start tomorrow.”

Everyone groans, but collects their drink bottles and rubbish and starts to head out the door. Yuuri turns to look at Hiroto, Yass, Naoko and Kaori, who clearly planned all of this between them. “Thank you,” he says, bowing. “This was very thoughtful. It means a lot to me.”

They all smile back. “We couldn’t let you mope by yourself,” says Yass casually.

“Why don’t you head to your room, Yuuri,” says Kaori kindly. “I bet Victor will be calling you soon.”


	2. Day 2

Both Yuuri and Victor have been dodging the question from journalists for a fortnight.

After Barcelona, after all the drama over retirements and returns to competition and decisions for the remainder of the season, Victor had looked at Yuuri and said “I want some time for us. I want this to just be for us, for now.”

They have barely had the time or the space to sit together, to have those heart-conversations about this engagement, about their next steps. Preparing for Nationals and organising the move to St Petersburg has taken all of their free time.

And Yuuri had to agree with Victor. As much as he wants to shout to the world “Mine, mine, Victor Nikiforov is mine”, he wants those quiet moments too. Everything Victor does with the public is a performance, and now that Yuuri knows him so well, he can see the relief in Victor over the fact he doesn’t yet have to play Yuuri Katsuki’s Fiance publicly while still juggling Yuuri Katsuki’s Coach and Reigning Russian Skating Champion Defending His Title.

"It's too much, all at once," Victor had explained, the two of them cuddled up together in their hotel room, looking out over the lights of Barcelona. "The Federation… well. I get a lot of leeway from being me, but Yakov and I are both using up favours to get me onto the Nationals list before it's officially published. If we let the news cycle focus on my return to competition, it means ticket sales and big audiences and all the things that keep the Federation happy." Victor squeezed Yuuri closer to him. "The reminder of what my brand is worth to Russia will help counter any objections people have about us."

The figure skating community basically knows it’s a done deal, at this point. Phichit and Chris have made sure of that, though they’ve been good enough to keep it off social media after being requested to not to mention it. But there’s a difference between the community knowing and the world knowing.

And so, in public at least, they’re still demurring when they are asked, as they have since the Cup of China. Speculation is rife and everywhere, but they’re not biting.

So far Yuuri’s blushed on camera and said the rings are omamori and Victor’s deflected questions laughingly, redirecting people to his return to skating. They’ve not given a single interview together, even after their dual skate.

It's a delicate balance to maintain. But after a fortnight where the press have been largely avoidable due to intense training commitments, Nationals has launched them back into the maelstrom.

* * *

The first thing Yuuri does on waking up is grab his phone and check the news and fansites for articles about Russian Nationals. It's an instinct as familiar as breathing; wake up at Nationals, look for the Victor Nikiforov interviews that were posted too late for him to see the night before.

The fact that he spoke on the phone to Victor last night, tucked up in bed, makes no difference. More than a decade of fannish obsession drives his hand.

Much of what he sees is as expected. Intricate dissections of Victor's current form compared with where he was at Worlds. Complaints over the repeated program. Comparisons of the program and scores against Victor's Olympic performance of it. Sarcastic and biting comments about Victor's return, about those doubting his return to form, about whether Victor should just have permanently retired.

The general mood is excitement and delight that the Russian Champion is back, cut with pointed remarks that he needs to get serious to maintain his dominance.

He plays an English-subtitled version of the main interview immediately after Victor's skate. Victor's pale skin looks lightly flushed, his breathing a little quick, and he's smiling his Press smile. "It felt good to get back out on the ice," the subtitles read. "I was happy with my performance today, though there is always room for improvement. Ultimately, today Yuri Plisetsky had better form and was more comfortable in his routine."

"Do you think you played it safe with your choices on the ice today?"

Victor's smile becomes sharper. "I am always happy to have competition and I look forward to the Free Skate tomorrow."

No other interview clips look like they are trending, so Victor clearly said nothing outside of the press-perfect answers. There's a few fan videos getting a large amount of traffic, including one where Yuri, during a warm up, is clearly heading over to talk to Lilia Baranovskaya, then sharply turns to Yakov Feltsman instead as Victor approaches. But otherwise, it doesn't look like any big news broke overnight.

* * *

Minako arrives in Osaka shortly after Yuuri finishes his breakfast in a whirlwind of organisation. She smiles at the coaching accreditation that Yuuri hands to her, then bluntly looks him over.

“Well, you seem to have slept. What do you want me to do for you? I haven’t had to accompany you to a competition since you were a teenager.”

“I thought we could dance before heading to the venue. There’s not a lot of space there for warming up.”

Minako nods. “I thought you might want to. I arranged some dance studio space nearby, if you want to warm up privately. What do you want to do? An hour of ballet?”

“An hour of ballet sounds perfect.” It’s a chance to do some land run-throughs while loosening up for the stretching that he’ll be repeating all day. While so far this season’s he’s been largely following Victor’s preferred technique to conserve energy and get everything done as close to official warm-ups as possible, Yuuri spent five years in Detroit, where Celestino insisted on a full 45 minute warm-up before every competition ‘to wake up the muscles’ before settling in to maintenance stretches for the rest of the day. Ballet practice is neither of these, but is something familiar that might take his mind off the distance between Osaka and Yekaterinburg. They don’t need to be at the venue until midday and Yuuri would rather not spend his time tripping over other people in the corridors.

Yuuri leaves a message for Victor to see when he wakes up about where he’s going and what he’s doing.

* * *

Half an hour of barre work later, Minako is supervising Yuuri’s stretches (mostly by applying extra resistance to them and twitting him about his foot flexibility), while her phone is propped up against the speakers. Victor is on a FaceTime call watching what’s happening, still tucked in his hotel bed with a laptop open. He only looks half-awake, but his hair is already perfect.

“I think I’ve found the right fancam streams to watch you during warm ups. Well, they’re showing the current Ladies Open Practice so hopefully they stay. It’s very inconvenient, trying to work this out via Google Translate. Do you know how the fans will be tagging things so I can find videos more easily?”

“No.” Yuuri concentrates on trying to stretch out that knot in his lower back that aches whenever he holds an unsupported Y spiral for too long these days. He’s getting older and while Minako tells him any professional dancer of his age should have no problems with it, there’s a reason he rarely has Biellmans choreographed into his spins any more, and it’s largely because he just doesn’t have two extra hours per day to spend maintaining the flexibility he had as a teen. “You could try my name, I guess? You know I never look, Victor.”

“I know the English and Russian tags to look for,” says Victor as the sound of him typing comes over the speakers. “I worked that out pretty easily during the Grand Prix series; but my Japanese is not yet good enough to work out the Japanese ones?”

“Ah!” says Minako cheerily, as she taps Yuuri to switch positions. “The phrase you want is ‘Ace of Hearts’. I’ll send you the kanji after this call so you can search for it.” 

“Ace of Hearts? They call you the ace of hearts, Yuuri? How has nobody ever mentioned this to me before?” 

Minako is a traitor, Yuuri thinks to himself, but not too loudly, because she has a bad habit of working out what he’s thinking. This stretch session is supposed to lightly warm him up and make him ready to compete, rather than intensely overwork his muscles. He really doesn’t want her to decide to switch to the latter. “You know fans are ridiculous,” is what Yuuri actually says.

“Also, most of the short program recordings going up immediately on YouTube so far this season have been labelled with some variation of “Katsudon” or “Love Fairy” in the title, so just search recent videos with those terms and you should find things,” adds Minako way too helpfully. 

Yuuri focuses on his stretches. If he pretends this conversation isn’t happening he doesn’t need to acknowledge the nonsense that his fans say.

“Love Fairy.” repeats Victor with delight. “How did they come up with that one?”

“I’m wearing your old Lilac Fairy costume for Eros,” Yuuri mumbles. Look, he knows the reason, even if he doesn’t want to think about it.

“But don’t worry too much about trying to get high quality recordings, Victor,” says Minako. “Yuuko has promised she’ll get proper recordings from the livestream and make sure they’re privately uploaded as soon as possible for you two.”

“Please record his warm-up run through for me from the side of the rink, too, if you can. I want a steady perspective on the skate."

* * *

It’s just before eleven when Yuuri arrives at the arena, Minako at his side. He has barely walked into the athlete area when a JSF official appears and tries to usher him away even before he’s dropped off his skate bag in the change room.

“Katsuki! There you are. Your media spot is in twenty minutes. Can you please come with me to prepare?”

Doing a full sit-down interview about the Grand Prix is definitely not calculated to settle his nerves, but his open practice doesn’t start until after two. It’s part of his obligations today, whatever he would prefer otherwise.

“You want me in my Team Japan outfit, yes?” he checks with the official.

“Yes, your tracksuit please.”

He grabs his make-up bag out of the top of his skate bag. He’s going to need to at least fix his hair before this interview, as if it runs too long he won’t have time to stop and gel it properly back and out of his eyes before he needs to warm back up for open practice. Minako takes the rest of his gear before he follows the official. She’ll keep an eye on it for him.

Yuuri’s uncomfortable about this interview. He’s been unsure about why it was happening since he was first notified it would occur. Yes, he just came within fractions of a point of winning the Grand Prix Final, but he’d done the rounds of all the major Japanese skating media in Barcelona, and everyone will get a chance in the mixed media area later this evening. There’s no real point to it.

Then he gets dropped off at the interview room. Naoko Sato is there, smoothing out a couple of Aiko Kimura’s flyaway hairs and checking that her earrings don’t have any traces of make-up on them. Ah. This is an interview for Aiko, not him. He and Naoko have been invited to play older teammates supporting the young star.

Aiko is six weeks shy of her fifteenth birthday and just competed at her first Junior Grand Prix Final. She brought home gold. She’s at Senior Nationals after winning Junior Nationals. She’s the sort of rising star Japan deserves and she’s on a trajectory that others spent much of his teen years telling him he could match if he was more consistent.

Setting up an interview for the new star Junior with her two Senior teammates who have also just returned from the Grand Prix Final is a kindness, honestly, and the interview’s probably going to be one of those passing-the-baton chats that Yuuri remembers from some of his interviews as a Junior. The first time he came home with Bronze from Junior Worlds he’d ended up in one with the senior skaters who were scheduled for Worlds. He’d spent half the interview trying to remind himself not to cry or talk about Victor too much as people asked him what his next goals were.

He grabs a comb and hair gel out of his make-up bag and heads over to the mirror that’s been set up on a table pushed against the wall to fix his hair into competition-style. Once he has his hair in order, Naoko hands him a packet of tissues.

“Clean your glasses. I can see the fingerprint smudges from here.” She pauses. “And polish that ring too.”

“They’re going to ask me about it,” Yuuri grouses as he follows Naoko’s instructions.

“Possibly,” says Naoko. “But it’s Japanese media, not Western media. You two haven’t publicly said anything yet, that I’ve heard?”

Yuuri squints at Naoko, glasses in his hands. “Not to the media. But you were at the banquet; Phichit and Chris could barely shut up about it.”

“Oh, everyone knows. Or strongly suspects. But you both announced that Nikiforov was returning to competition, and then would only answer questions relating to that and Nationals, so while there’s been plenty of speculation over the details, nobody's wanted to push."

"It's never stopped them before," Yuuri complains as he puts his glasses back on and then shakes his head, watching the mirror carefully to see if his hair moves. He sees a strange expression on Naoko's face from the corner of the mirror.

When he turns to look at her full on, Naoko looks concerned. "Is it all too much this year?"

Yuuri chews his lip. "I just want to do well and not disappoint anyone."

"Oh Yuuri," Naoko says with a sigh. "They want you to too."

* * *

The interview set up is pretty standard. They have three chairs: Yuuri’s next to the host, Naoko’s on the other end, and Aiko is tucked between them. She looks particularly tiny that way; a Junior literally needing to look up at the Seniors beside her. 

There’s a lot of fussing around with lights and angles, then the host welcomes and introduces each of them. 

Naoko and Yuuri turn simultaneously to Aiko and congratulate her on her gold medal. She looks a little bewildered yet proud, straightening in her seat and pink coming to her cheeks.

“Thank you! I still can’t believe it myself. I was so honoured to be at the Finals as one of Japan’s three representatives this year. Bringing home any medal, especially a gold one, for Japan was more than I could have hoped for.”

Aiko mentions how it was less scary it was to be at the Final knowing that Naoko and Yuuri were there too. “Skating is a solo sport where you spend a lot of time focused on your own program, but it made me more confident, having my teammates there as well.”

Naoko talks about how hearing about Aiko’s win gave her extra resolve to do her best during the Final. Yuuri suspects that to be a lie; no one’s competition routine involves talking to or about the Juniors before the Free Skate and she’d spent the Junior medal ceremony preparing for her own skate. But it’s the sort of soundbite that plays well.

He marshals up a couple of comments himself about how intimidating the Final is even when you’ve been there before, and how important it is to gain confidence from your coach and fellow skaters. “It’s the most exclusive stage of the year,” he says, “so knowing that there are other Japanese skaters present makes me especially proud to represent my country.” He does not mention he actually spent most of the day planning his retirement speech for the press conference after the Free Skate. 

The host turns to Yuuri. “Now Katsuki! How does it feel to have come home with a silver medal _and_ a new World Record, especially with such a small gap in the scores?”

“Very, very motivating. It’s a very different position to where I was last year.” The host laughs; Naoko smiles sympathetically at him. “After my disappointing performance last year, I felt that I needed to prove to everyone, including myself, that I was capable of better results. I didn’t want that to be everyone’s last impression of me.”

“Well you have certainly achieved that!” the host says. “I was certainly impressed by your performances during the Grand Prix. And you’re our only current World Record holder! ”

“Watching Yuuri skate this season has meant so much to me,” says Aiko unexpectedly. “Not just his results, but the way he’s approached it. It’s been… really special.” She looks over at Naoko, as if for help.

“You’ve seen a different side to his performances?” suggests Naoko.

“Yes! That’s it. Some of my Senior rink mates have told me that when you are at a competition with Yuuri you really remember why he’s called Japan’s Ace, because he’s so serious and determined in his approach while being so talented. And I’ve been getting to discover this myself.”

“How so?” asks the host as Yuuri tightens his back to stay upright and try not to show that he’s dying inside.

“Getting to watch his focus during warm ups with my own eyes. It’s… well, it’s inspiring. And his spins and jumps!” Aiko blushes and presses her hands to her cheeks for a moment. “I got to see his triple axels up close.”

Naoko turns to look straight at Yuuri. “You are very impressive to watch in person,” she says dryly. 

“...Thank you.”

“Do you think having a new coach and a new training centre has aided your results this season?” asks the host. 

Yuuri nods. “Working with Victor has been a big change for me. He has a very different perspective and approach to my previous coaches. I think the change has helped, because we both had to learn new ways of doing things and that meant we spent a lot of time examining previous assumptions about how I skate and perform. I am very thankful to my previous coaches for getting me to this level,” Yuuri hastily adds, “but this year I’ve been able to refine skills I previously had not mastered.”

“You recently announced that you will be moving to Russia after Nationals. Are you worried about moving during the season and whether it will disrupt your training?”

“It’s been lovely being home with my family, but I’m excited about the move to St Petersburg. It will be a new challenge but it’s also the best place that Victor and I could base ourselves while both training.”

“I’m excited for you!” Naoko adds cheerfully. “There are some skating rinks that everyone dreams about the chance to visit, and Yubileyny is definitely one of them!”

* * *

Afterwards, when the interview is finished, Yuuri still feels a bit shell-shocked. The focus had been firmly on him, not on Aiko as he’d thought.

"You idiot," says Naoko fondly. "I told you that the Japanese press are excited to see you do well."

* * *

Public practice is slightly awkward and overwhelming. The crowds in the stands are making noise. There are so many homemade banners. He can see his name everywhere he looks around the arena, shiny, glitter and matt, with well wishes written on each of them. There’s substantially more visible support for him than there was at NHK Trophy last year, and at that point he’d still been Japan’s National Champion.

Yuuri’s not sure what to make of it. Didn’t people remember the disasters of last year? Yet here they still were, banners up, screaming his name. And plenty of the banners had to be new and recently made – Yuuri spots one that has a picture of him in his Eros costume, kissing his ring, which means that someone had done a rush job on printing that banner in the last fortnight.

Minako elbows Yuuri in the ribs. “Did you see the banner of you two from Cup of China? I think your fans are out in force today.”

“Minako!” Yuuri whines. Yes, he had seen it. The banner used the most popular still shot from the kiss while they were still falling (one where Yuuri privately thought he looked not so much surprised as shocked and inwardly dying), and what’s more, he vaguely remembered spotting it in Barcelona. He’d been relieved at the time that Victor hadn’t tracked down the fans with it at that point, because the idea of Victor suggesting they replicate the pose in front of the banner… he didn’t think he was ready for that. He may never be ready for that. Fans could be so weird.

Minako smirked at him, then held her hands out. “Give me your glasses and get on the ice. You know that will settle you down.”

It’s only the truth, so Yuuri hands over his glasses, tugs his gloves more firmly onto his hands, then sheds his skate guards and heads to the gate.

Minami is waiting there in the costume that’s such a close tribute to his old Lohengrin costume that Yuuri had quietly checked his was still hanging safely in the back of his cupboard and hadn’t been sold to help cover some bills. The younger boy is jittering slightly as he looks out at the ice.

“There’s so many people,” he mutters to Yuuri. “They’re all here to watch us… to watch you.”

“Some of them are surely supporting you,” Yuuri replies quietly. “You came third last year, remember.”

Minami jumps through the gate and strokes away, turning back to face Yuuri. “You’re so funny! But I’ll show everyone that I deserve to be here.” He then swivels back to face forward and starts a quick lap to warm up his legs.

Yuuri follows Minami onto the ice. There’s probably time to fit a simple figure or two in while he’s warming up his jumps.

* * *

Once Yuuri’s taken his skates off and found a quiet corner, he calls Victor.

Victor picks up immediately. “Yuuri! I was watching your warm up! I told you that you didn’t need the flip today. They all looked good, though you could wait a little longer until you pick for the jump.”

Yuuri can still hear the delighted screams and cheers of the crowd each time he landed a quad flip ringing in his ears. The loud applause that came through clearly over the music. Whatever score he gets tonight, he knows that, somehow, the Japanese figure skating fans are willing to give him another chance after last year. Tonight, they’ll be waiting for him to land the first quad flip in competition at Japanese Nationals. 

“I know, but I want to do it.”

“So stubborn,” says Victor fondly. “Well, you looked ready. Just concentrate on what you need to do and your landings. Your average is still lower than I’d prefer.” He goes quiet for a moment, listening to some chatter in the background that just comes over the speaker. “Ah. Yurio is yelling at me about your triple axels.” 

Yuuri can hear the sounds of fumbling, and then, “What the fuck, Katsudon. What the fuck,” says Yuri down the phone, breathing heavily.

“Hi Yuri. What’s wrong?”

“Your axels!” It’s more a shriek than anything else.

There had been nothing special about his triple axel during Open Practice. What. “Were you watching with Victor?”

“Of course not. I’ve been busy getting ready for tonight, unlike the Old Man here.”

Yuuri thinks for a moment. Oh. "Did someone put up videos from practice yesterday?”

“Three axels!” Yuri sounds outraged. “How the hell do you make them look like that?”

“It’s a common jump drill. I was just playing around with a few other skaters. We do stuff like that every year. Don’t you have jump offs at Russian Nationals?” Really, he doesn’t understand how Yuri manages to spend so much of his life perpetually enraged. 

“Did you win?” demands Yuri, ignoring the question.

“Of course. Yass Suzuki has a terrible axel.”

“Huh.”

There’s another couple of crackles as Victor reclaims his phone. “Ok. He’s gone off to sulk with Lilia.”

“Victor, do Russians not have fun at your Nationals?” asks Yuuri with concern.

Victor laughs. “Of course we do. It’s just the stress of placements for the second half of the season getting to Yurio. He had a fight with one of the Lagutin brothers at breakfast - I think it was Sergio - over their Russian Cup scores.”

“How are you feeling about tonight?” It’s probably the last chance they’ll have to talk before competing, as Victor has his own Open Practice shortly. 

“Ready,” says Victor after a moment of thought. “I wasn’t sure how competing would feel yesterday, but it’s just like I remember. It’s a good thing I’ve been having to keep up with your stamina all season; things might have been different otherwise.” 

“I’ll be watching,” Yuuri promises.

“I know you will. It makes the separation more bearable. We’ll be back on the same ice next week.”

“Your ice,” says Yuuri, a little reverently.

Victor chuckles. “Yes, my ice. I can’t wait to show St Petersburg to you.”

* * *

The time at a competition always passes oddly. Sooner than he expects, Yuuri finds himself skating out to centre ice. As the audience settles down to a hush, the comforting blur removes the pressure of the crowd around him. He can still feel their energy, but there’s a safe barrier between him and the intensity. He takes a deep breath, stilling his mind and letting the stress of the past few weeks flow away. It’s not important right now. What’s important is the feel of the ice under his skates, the sound as he moves, the comfortingly tight grip of well-laced boots.

He brings Victor to mind. Victor, far away in Yekaterinburg, at the other end of a camera feed. Victor, who’ll be watching through someone else’s eyes and shot angles. He mentally designates one of the main cameras near Minako as ‘Victor’ for the purposes of The Playboy and pulls the emotions around him. If he has to seduce Victor from a distance, it just means that every gesture, every emotion needs to be just that bit bigger for the cameras, as the energy of the arena won’t be there.

He brings his right hand up and presses his ring against his lips, warming it, then looks up in the direction of Camera Victor and stretches his right hand out, fingers spread, reaching out towards the camera before circling around and down to his side, dropping his chin and eyes as his arm drops. He stands silent, waiting for the music to start.

The opening notes sound and Yuuri draws the gasp of the audience in to him. He is beautiful, and every eye is watching his every move. He can flirt, but they cannot touch. There is only one person that this dance is for, and Yuuri _knows_ he is watching. He smirks at the camera. You cannot touch me, oh no. You can only look, just for this one night.

The music carries Yuuri on as he focuses on every gesture and look; the line of his arms, the tilt of his chin, the extension of his leg on his spins. The roar of the crowd rises and falls as, element by element, the routine unspools before him. And then suddenly, inevitably, it’s time for his triple axel. Strike, up, pull and down. As his skate connects with the ice solidly he feels the satisfaction of a clean jump landing run through him, the comfort of knowing that his body hasn’t betrayed him. Then it’s his combination jump, and the salchow feels right while Yuuri’s in the air and he knows that this one will land cleanly too, and he breathes through the second jump and the landing, calming the sudden intrusive thoughts and pushing away the worries of the last time he did a salchow on this ice.

He moves across the ice, gathering speed for his quad flip. The playboy might think he has all the power here, but Yuuri can meet him on his level, equally. This time the landing feels fractionally short and isn’t as secure, he feels his ankle fight to turn out, but Yuuri pushes harder through his quad to load the edge of his blade and feels the burn in his free leg as he keeps it clear from ice. He’s done it. Messily, but that’s the hardest part of his routine done, and now it’s a spin sequence that he loves, something that he couldn’t mess up even last year.

As the music stops and he feels his lungs heave, burning with the exhaustion of a full out routine, the noise of the crowd filters back into his awareness. He raises his arm to acknowledge them, and incredibly the noise becomes even louder. He squints slightly to orient himself, then heads for the boards and the exit as the ice fills with flowers and toys. He avoids any of the poodle toys as he WILL cry if he picks one up, then sees a sparkly dragon hit the ice right in front of him and reaches down to snag it, because why not? And then he’s off the ice and the audience is still screaming and Minako hands him his blade covers and glasses, then helps him back into his jacket, her eyes starry with tears.

“You should acknowledge them again,” Minako prompts, as the noise level fails to abate. “You just landed a quad flip for Japan, at Nationals.” So Yuuri waves to the crowd once more (which doesn’t help the noise level AT ALL) and then heads for the Kiss and Cry for the wait and the inevitable tears.

* * *

The scores go up. Minako bursts into tears and wraps her arms around his shoulders as Yuuri presses the dragon to his chest, staring at his highest ever Short Program score. His own eyes start watering. It’s only Nationals, so it doesn’t really count, but it’s above 110, making it a new personal best.

After last year, it’s an incredible difference, something he and Japan can be proud of.

* * *

After he gets away from the Kiss and Cry Yuuri heads to the mixed zone to give the usual quick soundbites, then to the green room to wait on the last few skaters to finish.

As soon as placings are finalised, with Yuuri still in first place, there’s a quick interview in Japanese for the broadcast, after which he and the reporter switch to English and go over the same talking points for any international reporters present. He doesn’t really have to do the English version for national competitions, but since everyone knows he’s fluent, the journalists appreciate it so they have the quotes available immediately. Yuuri then escapes to get out of his skates and costume and into his Team Japan tracksuit before a quick stretch and then returning, now accompanied by Hiroto and Yass who are currently in second and third place, for another, more in-depth round of interviews with various media organisations.

Mostly, it’s the exact same round of questions he answered only a fortnight ago. There’s more local sports journalists present today, so everyone wants a word about his Grand Prix Final finish and new world record. Others who travel for international competitions, like Morooka, are using their time to ask about the rest of the season or to clarify facts from earlier interviews.

No, despite any rumours to the contrary, I am not retiring. Thank you, yes, it’s always an honour to compete for Japan. I am very pleased with my Grand Prix Final results. I am still overwhelmed by now holding the Free Skate World Record. I am happy with my short program placement today and a new personal best but I hope I can continue to improve the program over the season. Yes, I am continuing with Victor Nikiforov as my coach; he cannot be here today because he is competing at his own Nationals.

“How does it feel knowing you now hold both the Junior Short Program record and the Senior Free Skate record?” asks a reporter from Fuji TV.

“Oh goodness, is the Junior one still standing?” says Yuuri wildly. It had been his last season in Juniors and with most of the attention on the Olympics, some of the early 2010 competition scores from judging panels had been oddly high. It was just his luck that he’d had a solid short program with Lohengrin at a competition that nobody, not even the judges, had been paying much attention to, and finished with unbelievably high GOEs and PCS. People always wanted to bring it up. 

The fact that it hasn’t yet been beaten in the following seven seasons has always been proof to Yuuri that he was vastly overscored that day. Every other figure skating World Record was replaced regularly; his Junior short program remained. He hadn’t even noticed when Yuri Plisetsky had failed to beat it last year, despite sweeping up the Free Skate and Total Score records. (To be fair, he hadn’t noticed much during the second half of last season).

“Given the depth of talent in the Juniors' field I am amazed and flattered to still hold the record, and as always I hope to see it challenged and beaten this season.” Yuuri laughs ruefully. “It's humbling, knowing that your record is the target for so many determined and talented young skaters.”

Morooka takes his turn and asks “Given the longevity of the record, do you still feel that you didn’t deserve the score? You’ve spoken previously about the fact that you don’t believe your performance that day was such a personal best.”

“Well, part of the reason I love figure skating is that it’s a competition against yourself, to push yourself further. I’ve always wondered what the judges saw that day, to give me that score, when I knew there were still so many ways I could improve.” Yuuri shrugs. 

“Do you also feel the same way about your new Free Skate record?” asks Nobunari Oda, who always seems determined to tease Yuuri as if they were still teammates on Team Japan, rather than act like a proper journalist. 

“I’m very honoured by the new record, but I’m aware of improvements that I can make, and I have plenty of competition for the remainder of the season. JJ Leroy, for instance, has a higher base value for his program than I do, and there are several other skaters with base values equivalent to mine.”

“How about Victor Nikiforov’s program?” asks Oda, who is perfectly able to score programs, has probably already seen the submitted layout, and apparently just wants Yuuri to suffer. Yuuri bites the inside of his cheek and forces himself not to fidget with his ring.

“I believe everyone will get the chance to judge that for themselves tonight, but yes, I’m aware of his layout and his jump base values are slightly higher than mine.”

The interview rolls on into what it’s been like training in Japan again, and whether he’s looking forward to moving to St Petersburg. Yuuri answers as diplomatically as possible, sticking to his talking points: yes, it’s been a lovely change to be training back in Hasetsu, after five years in Detroit. Yes, he’s excited about the move to St Petersburg. No, he’s not worried about the language barrier, as he and Victor have been working together in English for the past 8 months, and they plan to continue that. Of course he will miss Hasetsu and his family.

“I haven’t really had this much time with my family since I was in my teens. It's been wonderful to be able to spend so much time with everyone, these past nine months, but they've always been so supportive of my career and understand why I am moving."

Kaori suddenly appears by his shoulder. “I apologise for interrupting,” she says quickly, “but Yuuri, the third group’s about to get on the ice.”

Yuuri gasps. “Oh!” He turns back to Morooka and Oda. “Is it all right if we finish up now? I promise to be available tomorrow.”

Oda laughs. “Has someone been keeping an eye on the livestream for you, Yuuri?”

“We’ve got a screen dedicated to it in the locker room, in case Yuuri couldn’t get back to the hotel in time,” says Kaori. 

“Well, I know from experience how hard it is to get between you and a Nikiforov performance, so we’ll finish up here. Good luck tomorrow, Yuuri and good luck to you too Kaori Ito.”

“Thank you for your support,” they chorus together as Yuuri tries to walk calmly out of camera shot before he bolts for the locker room, Kaori following him, as they hear Morooka wrap up the broadcast in the background.

* * *

Asahi TV, because apparently everyone hates him today, decides to put the clip of Kaori interrupting the interview up on social media. Yuuri is already getting tagged in posts about it as he settles down on a bench, so he just mutes everything and focuses on the screen. There are only a few people left in the locker room as interviews ran so late - everyone else seems to have headed back to the hotel. It’s very kind that anyone waited for him, honestly.

“What took so long?” asks Hiroto, who is lounging comfortably on one of the benches.

“Morooka and Oda wanted a full interview, and Oda was in a teasing mood, so everything took forever.” Yuuri replies. “Oh look, Georgi’s makeup has become even more dramatic. I didn’t realise that was possible.”

Hiroto accepts the distraction as Yuuri roots through his skate bag for a protein bar and a bottle of water. He needs to eat. All four of them relax, watching as the rest of the skaters get called off the ice and Vasil Lutsenko strikes a pose at centre ice, waiting for his music to begin.

* * *

Oda turns up soon after with an armful of snacks. “I come bearing gifts!” he says, dumping the whole lot on a bench. “The combini out front was open. Is this enough to let me count as a skater?”

Yass investigates the pile, handing out favourite items to various people. “There’s enough calories here that you’re forgiven for most of the questions you asked earlier. Join us. You’re just in time for the main event.”

“Shhhhhh,” says Yuuri absently, staring at the screen. One of the Moscow skaters – Alexei Trofimov – is waiting for his score in the Kiss and Cry. He accepts a bottle of Pocari Sweat and a Kit-Kat from Yass (one won’t hurt) and unwraps the chocolate as he watches the replay of Alexei overrotating a salchow and falling. Everyone winces.

“Another skater looking rattled because Victor’s competing,” says Kaori with a shake of her head.

“Watch – he'll drop out of the top 5," speculates Hiroto.

Alexei’s score goes up. He’s sitting in 4th overall, which with Victor and Yuri still to come means he’s out of any serious competition for the rest of the season. The camera switches over to Victor, who is looking seriously at Yakov as he hands over his warm-up jacket and reveals his costume.

“He’s wearing the purple version!” says Kaori with delight. “Oh, Yuuri, that’s so cute.”

Yuuri can feel a blush coming up on his cheeks as he fiddles with his ring.

Victor sweeps his right hand across his forehead, pushing his fringe into place (and incidentally making his ring sparkle for all the cameras aimed at it) and then winks at the camera, pushing away from the edge of the rink for his warm up lap. He settles into the centre of the rink, looking lost and forlorn.

Victor’s _Stammi Vicino_ looks more polished than his short program did. He’s done it more recently and more often, and even with a nine month break from competition, Victor’s body still clearly knows every beat of the music. The heartbreak in the music has Victor reaching out for a skater who isn’t beside him, waiting for a partner who cannot join him, looking for a ghost. They haven’t spoken, haven’t even had a chance to communicate since Yuuri finished his short program, but Yuuri can sense the message Victor is sending back with his skating, that the ice by himself is cold and lonely without Yuuri there to hold his hand.

Yuuri suddenly realises, watching the program, that it is all wrong for the Victor that he knows. This is the ice prince in his tower, trapped by himself without the warmth of life and love. It’s not the man that he loves, running at the beach with Makkachin, eating his mother’s meals, cheerfully getting by in town with his terrible Japanese and a smile, chasing the triplets around the ice playing tag.

He's also apparently not the only one to notice.

“Is it just me or is this even gloomier than it was at Worlds?” asks Yass, squinting at the screen. “It’s always been a sad piece, but I don’t remember it being quite this depressing.”

Towards the end of the program the mood becomes more hopeful, as if a long wait is almost over. It still seems somehow off, as if there’s a visual gap in the routine. Yuuri can see exactly where he would fit in beside Victor if this was their paired skate, to the slight detriment of a Singles program, as it loses some of its symmetry and elements revolve around a void.

Oda looks sidelong at Yuuri.

“He’s not keeping the program, is he?”

“No, this is just for Nationals,” says Yuuri after a beat. It’s not exactly surprising news, and if Oda happens to mention it in commentary, it’s not the sort of exclusive information that’s going to disrupt anything.

“That’s a sensible call. I think the program has shifted too far towards the exhibition at this point. You can see the missing lifts.”

“Victor wants new programs for the rest of the season. But they’re not ready yet.”

Oda has an assessing look on his face. “Exactly how long has Nikiforov been intending to return for the rest of the season?”

Yuuri tightens his lips together.

“Oda, if you’re here, this is off the record,” Hiroto breaks in. “You said this was Team Japan skater time.”

“Oh, fine, fine,” Oda says. “I _was_ in Barcelona and noticed some of the Russian ruckus. But, skater to skater, how close to the deadline did Nikiforov tell the Russian Federation that he was returning?”

“...There were a lot of late night calls and emails after the Free Skate,” Yuuri allows.

“And how soon before that did _Nikiforov_ decide he was returning?”

“That I’m not answering.”

They watch the scores go up for Victor. Yuuri breathes out a sigh of relief when he sees it. Still somewhat lower than what you might normally expect for a Nikiforov routine, but high enough that he’s now in first, with enough of a lead that Yuri will have to push to beat it, especially as his Free Skate is his weaker routine. Victor winks and waves one of his Makkachin tissue box cover paws towards the camera.

“Yes!” says Hiroto in a satisfied tone. 

“I liked it, but I think it’s better with both of you, Yuuri,” says Kaori.

* * *

Yuri’s performance is the final one of the night. He looks far more settled into his Free Skate music than he has up until now, if still a bit frenetic. The attitude matches the music well enough, Yuuri supposes. 

“So am I allowed to ask about the rings yet?” Oda asks, looking at Yuuri. Oh. He’s fidgeting with his ring again as he watches Yuri’s skate. He shrugs.

“Who picked them?” asks Yass curiously.

“I did,” Yuuri admits. “I gave Victor the ring.”

Kaori sighs happily. 

“Really? I think we all assumed it was the other way around,” says Hiroto.

Yuuri thinks of the delighted smile on Victor’s face every time he had looked at his ring and then at Yuuri, that night in Barcelona. “Definitely not,” he says firmly.

“Well, congratulations,” says Hiroto.

“I’m very happy for you,” says Oda.

On the screen, Yuri suddenly falls on the first jump of his quad toe combination. They all gasp. He gets up, an angry expression on his face, and pushes straight back into his routine, but the flow is somewhat lost. He ends up tacking a very messy loop onto his final jump to turn it into a combination, and strikes his final pose breathing very heavily.

“It was going to be close before that fall,” Yass mutters.

“Unless they do something odd with the scoring, I think it won’t be enough,” says Hiroro.

They all wait for the score. Yuri looks stoic through the replays, not glancing away from the screen. He has Lilia and Yakov on either side of him, bracketing him.

It’s not enough.

Victor has gold and is National Champion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri’s Junior Short Program record is for Lohengrin. 
> 
> To set the scene: February 2010. A random ISU qualified international Junior competition. Nobody cares about this competition, not even the athletes competing in it, really. It’s the Olympics. Everyone is too distracted by the rapidly developing quad controversy.
> 
> All of Yuuri’s previous serious competition has moved up to Seniors this season, as Olympics. He has not. Clearly, the entire Junior division this season is comprised of those who are just not Olympics material. Yuuri, under absolutely no pressure at this random competition, knowing nobody is even watching it, has the skate of his life (up to that point) during his short program. It’s sharp, it’s clean, he’s incredibly musical, there are no deductions.
> 
> The judges, noticing that one of this year’s JGPF medalists has just had the sort of skate you use to teach what skills should look like to younger skaters, award points at the upper end of the range Yuuri undoubtedly was within as far as GOE and PCS go. The Olympics are on right now. Everyone’s feeling a little free and happy with the scores, because everyone likes hearing the words ‘new world record’ during the Olympics. This kid deserves it.
> 
> Yuuri sets a new junior world record. (He also fell apart during the free skate, because YUURI, but still came home with a medal)
> 
> Yuuri considers it to be his dark past, as all he heard for the next 6 months was why wasn’t he at the Olympics. He knew why he wasn’t at the Olympics: he doesn’t even have a stable quad yet. The JSF had kindly told him that past summer that they thought he would benefit from another year in Juniors. Anxiety!Yuuri looks at the extremely high GOE and PCS scores awarded and goes ‘well something went wrong with that judging’. It’s embarrassing. (He only won Junior Worlds the next month because, as he previously mentioned, he had no competition left in the division)
> 
> He focuses on his move to Seniors instead, hoping that someone will get around to breaking his record at some point.
> 
> They don’t. (It’s sort of hard to beat, honestly - Yuuri was already basically maxed out in terms of jump value, so the Juniors who follow him are chasing GOEs and PCS)
> 
> Yuuri gets asked to do Lohengrin for ice shows for years afterwards, and tries to wriggle out of it as much as possible, offering other routines that he’s sure they’ll enjoy more, because Lohengrin was a fluke.
> 
> The in-universe YOI fandom love bringing up 2010 Lohengrin as evidence that Yuuri is really Just That Good when he’s on form. They also only have a 360p copy of it on YouTube, because of said competition being something literally nobody was watching. It’s basically the holy grail.
> 
> Michele had to skate immediately after Yuuri at this competition. Mickey’s never forgiven him.
> 
> So essentially:  
> Yuuri: Lohengrin is my dark past because I got ridiculously overscored for it once. It’s embarrassing.  
> A generation of skaters younger than Yuuri: Lohengrin is the pinnacle we strive for, as nobody has been able to beat it yet.  
> All of the skaters older than Yuuri: What happened? We’ve been too distracted by the quad controversy.


	3. Day 3

Yuuri wakes up, still on a high from Victor’s win the night before. The tenor of the press articles has shifted from uncertainty over whether Victor was in sufficient shape to skate against athletes who had been competing all season, to a triumphal celebration of the return of the King to his rightful position at Nationals.

Victor himself had voiced more doubts about his performance than the Russian and International press combined.

“I don’t like winning due to another skater’s mistakes,” he’d said to Yuuri last night, when they’d spoken close to midnight. Victor had hidden himself from the press as soon as he could after initial interviews to make the call, knowing Yuuri was waiting to hear from him. “I knew that a win wasn’t guaranteed, and now the narrative is just going to be that I’m still golden.”

“I’m looking at photos of the score sheets,” said Yuuri from his hotel bed, laptop propped on his lap. “The margin was slightly more than the deductions. It was going to be close either way.”

“Without the GOEs on the fallen jump, Yurio would have had it,” Victor sighed. “He’s furious.”

“It’s not guaranteed,” Yuuri had replied. “And remember, scores are what the judges see, not might-have-beens. You didn’t fall, and Yuri did. His Free Skate is his weaker performance.”

“That’s because he doesn’t have your stamina, Yuuri,” said Victor, in a meaningful voice, at which point the conversation had switched from Victor’s gold medal to other topics more helpful to allowing Yuuri to settle down for the night.

There’s little point in trying to go back to sleep this morning, given that he’s due at the venue by 11 at the latest, so Yuuri goes down to the early breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which is already full of Ladies skaters and their teams eating rapidly before heading to the arena for practice.

He gets smiles and waves from all over the restaurant as he enters.

Kanako Odagaki, Minami’s coach, smiles at Yuuri in the buffet line. “Please pass my congratulations on to Victor Nikiforov. That is his sixth National title, yes?”

“Seventh,” Yuuri absently corrects. Everyone always forgets that Victor had two National titles to his credit before his Grand Slam streak began, and that he’d missed one Nationals during the streak to recover from an injury between the Grand Prix and Europeans. It’s still an intimidating number.

Odagaki looks amused. “You would be the expert.” She finishes assembling her tray. “Do you have a table?” she asks politely.

Yuuri nods. He focuses on the coffee machine, as he just wants some privacy to concentrate this morning. Odagaki leaves him to it.

Unfortunately, quiet focus while eating is not the tone of the morning. Other athletes and coaches keep stopping by his table to send Victor their congratulations, with many of them also complimenting Yuuri on his new personal best from last night.

“Please tell Nikiforov we were so happy to see his continued performance and artistry,” is one comment. Another is “Can you tell Victor how excited I was to see him on the ice again!” There are compliments for Victor’s programs, his jumps, his return. One coach that Yuuri used to travel to Fukuoka to work with during his Junior days stops by to inform him that “I can tell Nikiforov has been working with you and your step sequences – his have improved,” which is a backhanded compliment that Yuuri is unsure whether to pass along.

It’s honestly a bit exhausting, but talking about what he likes in one of Victor’s programs and Victor winning is not a hardship for Yuuri; he’s done it so often. It’s like checking social media the day after one of Victor’s wins, without any of the hate or negative comments – Yuuri doesn’t have to defend Victor’s skills to anyone, and everyone is all too ready to tell him all their favourite Nikiforov moments from the past two days.

The messages on his phone are equally cheerful. There are good luck wishes from his family and from Celestino. Sara has sent him a gif of animals partying. Leo’s filled up a group chat of US-based Men’s Singles International skaters (that Phichit has convinced him not to leave) with delighted comments about the fact that Europeans is going to be on FIRE and aren’t they all lucky not to be going. Phichit’s provided a constant flow of gifs to document his moment by moment reaction to watching Yuuri’s Short Program, followed by a lot of sly jokes about what Yuuri can do with Victor’s latest gold medal.

Victor has sent him a long, element by element, breakdown of his program, with exclamation points after every element that Yuuri’s ever fallen on and rapturous notes about the GOEs and PCS assigned. There are fanvid clips of the performance interspersed through it. It’s the most over-the-top and ridiculous thing Victor’s ever said after a performance and completely opposite to the detailed critique-with-video that will be coming as soon as they’re back in the same country.

The support for both of them makes him feel warm inside, and even more determined to do well. 

* * *

“Come down to the foyer for a while,” says Minako, as Yuuri loosens his jacket to cool off a little after a run on the treadmill. He’s been at the arena for less than half an hour and needs to get properly ready. The men’s open practice is just starting. 

“I need to get started on my warm-up.”

“You’ve got guests waiting to see you.”

Naoko looks up from a nearby corner of the room where she’s stretching out on a yoga mat after her own ice time. “Can I come too?”

“I’m sure they’ll love to see you, Sato,” says Minako, so the guests are clearly people who know them both.

“Who are the guests?”

“You’ll see.”

“Did you organise this, Minako?”

“It wasn’t my plan, but Victor and I helped to make sure it happened.”

They wind through the corridors and pop out into the main foyer, which is already busy with crowds of people talking and buying food and merchandise.

Three kids cannon straight into Yuuri at high speed and he automatically reaches out to steady them. The purple, blue and pink jackets immediately give away that it’s the Nishigori triplets.

“Yuuri! Are you surprised to see us!”

“We came all the way by plane!”

“Kaasan said we were finally old enough to come to Nationals!”

“It is definitely a surprise,” says Yuuri. “I’m very glad to see you.” He looks over the triplets’ heads at Takeshi, who is hurrying behind them. “How did you get away?”

“My parents are minding the rink today,” Takeshi replies. “This is a treat for the girls. We wanted to bring them to at least one of your competitions this season, since you’ve been training at their rink.”

“Yuuko! You’re here!”

“Naoko! It’s been too long!”

Naoko and Yuuko immediately fall into conversation with each other. They’d all been at regional competitions together during their pre-teen and teen years, so it’s more of a reunion than anything else.

Axel, bouncing on her toes, tugs on Yuuri’s jacket cuff. “Can we go backstage? Can we see the skating areas?”

Yuuri glances at the surrounding crowds, who are giving them space but paying very close attention. If they don’t move, people might start interrupting to politely ask for photos or signatures. There’s a reason he usually doesn’t leave the skater-only areas of the arena. “We can probably go somewhere quieter, at least.”

The guards on the door make a face when the group approaches, but Yuuri, Minako and Naoko show their passes with confidence.

“We just want to step into a side room for a few minutes,” Yuuri explains. “These are my nieces and I haven’t seen them all week.”

The guards apparently believe this and let them pass. They move down the corridor to a point where it widens and there’s relatively more privacy.

“Nieces?” asks Takeshi, sounding amused.

“I needed them to let you in!” protests Yuuri. It doesn’t help.

“I guess you’ll need to find the girls some more presents, Uncle,” says Takeshi, clapping down hard on Yuuri’s shoulder.

“Can we go see the warm up area?” asks Lutz, standing on her tip-toes to look down the corridor. “I want to see what it’s like!”

“Not now girls,” says Yuuko quickly. “You’ll have a better view in the arena seats.”

‘It’s really very boring,” adds Naoko. “Much more fun watching everyone from the stands. Ask your mother – she competed here for Junior Nationals the first year I was allowed to go.”

“You competed with Kaasan?” asks Axel suddenly. “I didn’t know that!”

Naoko laughs. “Your mother and I overlapped at competitions for a few years before she retired and had you three. We weren’t in the same divisions, though; she was much more senior than I was.”

Axel stares at Naoko. “Wow, Kaasan, you competed with Naoko Sato! That’s so cool!”

“Where did you two come at Junior Nationals that year?” asks Loop with wide eyes.

“Who else did you skate with that you haven’t told us about?” asks Lutz excitedly.

“Looks like you’re no longer the coolest,” Takeshi murmurs to Yuuri. “You’ve been eclipsed.”

“Well, I have been at the rink every day for the last eight months,” Yuuri mutters back. “At some point it was going to become ordinary to them.”

“Why don’t I come and sit in the stands with you during Men’s Open Practice?” Naoko offers. “You’re in Family and Friends, aren’t you?” She looks over at Yuuko. “And we can catch up. I can’t believe these three are so big now!”

“Sounds good,” says Yuuko. “Axel, Lutz, Loop! We came to wish Yuuri good luck.”

All three terrors turn to Yuuri. “Good luck!” they yell together.

“Can we have a photo?” Loop begs.

“Can we POST the photo?” Lutz pleads.

“Oh, all right,” says Yuuri. “Get in here, Nishigoris.”

Naoko tries to take the photo, but Axel begs her to join in, so Minako, who had been hovering watching everyone in an amused manner, claims the phone to take a series of photos.

And as Yuuri looks at the result as Lutz prepares to post it, tongue sticking out the side of her mouth as she concentrates, he can’t remember feeling this cheerful before a competition since the last US Classic he attended with Phichit.

* * *

Much later that night, Yuuri sees that Naoko posted the photo to Instagram herself, accompanied by a throwback picture to Japanese Nationals from Yuuri’s last year competing in Juniors. In it, Yuuri and Naoko, still in costume and wearing medals, stand either side of a visibly pregnant Yuuko, with a proud looking Takeshi behind her, hand on shoulder. All four of them are grinning. She’d titled it “Seven years later – same seven friends.”

* * *

The schedule for warm-ups is closely packed. Yuuri has his music run through in the middle of his practice session, which means he has plenty of time to warm up properly before he gets into his jumps.

As soon as he hits the ice he windmills his arms, trapping a little more body heat under his jacket to keep his muscles warm as he works. A couple of laps, throwing bits and pieces of old step sequences in to start thinking about footwork.

He follows along with the background music, making the old steps he practices hit on the beat of the music, speeding them up or slowing them down as necessary. He’d rather put headphones in and work to his own soundtrack, but with the audience and the music playing for run throughs it would clash too much.

He’s about ready to run through the Yuri on Ice sequence when the music picks up into the same rhythm and beats per minute as _Stammi Vicino_ and so Yuuri does that instead. He’s used it to warm up so often over the last twelve months that it just feels natural to choose it instead. There are loud whoops and cheers from the audience as he does so, and the applause and laughter when he finishes are gratifying.

Yuuri does a little bow to the audience in thanks while Yass shouts across the ice “It’s the _Free Skate_ , Yuuri, not Exhibition practice! You’re not Nikiforov!”

The laughter is even louder from the audience as they hear that.

Yuuri mimes a shrug back to Yass then launches quickly into his Yuri on Ice step sequence instead, following it up with his first jump: a single flip to test the entry and the feel of the ice. The jump floats nicely and the ice under foot feels a little fast and slick, but nothing that won’t be fixed in the next resurfacing. 

He gets down to business after that. Warming up each jump that he intends to use; occasionally catching the eye of another skater and gesturing so they jump simultaneously; shaking out the kinks of his spins.

There’s just so much applause this session. The audience is loud and appreciative, reacting to everyone on the ice.

By the time his run-through rolls around and his music cues up, he’s shaken out any jitters and just concentrates on the run through, going full out while still absently tracking the paths of the other skaters on the ice. He catches Minami and one of the other young skaters - Fumiyuki Arashiro - copying the choreography sequence as he does it. Yass jumps on the same beat as his triple lutz combo. Hiroto is waiting and politely applauding as Yuuri finishes, before sweeping out to take his own turn at centre ice.

It’s like having rinkmates back around him in Detroit. Training in Hasetsu has meant that the only other person on ice with him during most of his training sessions has been Victor, and during the Grand Prix, everyone had been extremely serious and focused. Here, Yass slaps hands with him as they pass closely while Yuuri heads off to take over an empty stretch of the rink edge to get a bit more jump practice in. Everyone is having a bit of fun before getting serious again later in the afternoon once competition properly starts. 

Yuuri had known that the move to St Petersburg would mean that he once again had to share the ice; he hadn’t realised until this moment that part of him had missed the camaraderie of rinkmates training on a similar level.

* * *

As Yuuri bows off the ice, Minako beckons him over. She’s around one side of the rink where the seating is closest to the boards, looking upwards as she chats to a small group of fans. One of them is wearing a hand knitted hat that looks vaguely familiar for some reason.

“Come be polite, Yuuri,” says Minako with that smile that threatens him with a lot of painful flexibility work if he doesn’t comply.

“Minako!” says the one wearing the familiar hat. Yuuri suddenly realises that he’s seen it in photos on Minako’s phone before. These must be some of her arena buddies. “We don’t want to interrupt your preparation, Yuuri, but some of us decided to organise something special for you, and Minako here _promised_ she could help get it to you.” She makes a face at Minako.

“We realise the last twelve months have been a really hard time for you, and we wanted you to know how much we appreciate your skating,” said another woman, cheerfully rugged up in multiple layers and a puffer jacket to stay warm in the arena.

“So we put this together. I hope you like it.” They drop a small package over the barricades into his waiting hands. He opens the plastic bag to find…a leather notebook, with his name embossed on the cover in Japanese and English.

“People have been filling it out for you during the Grand Prix,” says the woman wearing too many layers. “It ended up going to _all_ the events.”

“They are messages of support for you,” the woman in the hat says. “We know you don’t spend a lot of time on social media, but we wanted to make sure you knew that we appreciate every one of your skates and that you always have supporters wishing you well.”

Yuuri looks down at the book and carefully opens it, flicking through the pages. There are messages in Japanese, in English, even a couple in Thai and Russian. There are clever little sketches drawn on some of the pages. At the back is an envelope set into the cover that is stuffed to bursting with photos and art.

Words jump out at him.

     ` Thank you for returning to competition  
My heart broke when you didn’t qualify last year  
We love watching every one of your performances  
Yuri on Ice is such a beautiful piece and you glow every time you skate it  
It’s so special to watch you skate  
The way you always get up and keep going gives me the strength to push through my own bad days  
I always knew you could win  
You’re my inspiration`

He closes the cover firmly, feeling tears well up inside him. This is not the time to look at the messages; he’s got too much more preparation to do today, before the Free Skate.

“Thank you.” He knows his voice sounds a little choked up. “This is very thoughtful. I… I’ll do my best for you today, I promise.”

“We know you will!” says the woman in the puffer jacket. “You always do.”

* * *

In the locker room, after Yuuri’s taken a moment to freshen up and change his shirt and socks to avoid feeling clammy during the wait during Ladies Singles, he gets pounced on by a hopeful-looking Minami and a handful of other teens in the Men’s Singles division.

“We want to take some group photos! Can you please be part of them?”

Despite his first instinct being to say no, Yuuri relents at the sight of far too many pleading eyes. It’ll make Victor happy to hear that he’s talking to the younger skaters and his fans.

“Sure.”

There are a bunch of group shots, interspersed with almost every skater in the group politely asking for a personal photo, _with_ Yuuri. There are silly photos, and short videos of various skaters imitating each other’s choreography. He ends up getting asked to sign a bunch of autographs, scrawled on the back of competition run sheets and glossy promotional flyers from foyer and in a couple of actual notebooks.

Aiko, in full costume, walks past the fun right before going out for her Short Program and stops in her tracks, looking pleadingly at her coach and then at Yuuri. “Can I have a photo for luck?”

“You don’t need my Nationals luck, you just won the Junior Grand Prix!” Yuuri protests, to no avail. 

So Yuuri wraps his arm around Aiko’s shoulder while she hugs his side, her head only just comes up to the top of his shoulder despite her skates, and her coach takes their photo. Yuuri wishes her good luck as her extremely tolerant coach hustles her away so she’s not late for her performance in the first group.

Right at the point when Yuuri is feeling a bit wrung out from being the focus of too many excited and excitable young skaters, one of the older coaches appears at the doorway and raises his eyebrow at his athletes. “Ishida! Arashiro! Have you two eaten your lunches yet?”

“No, coach,” they chorus in reply.

“Time to eat then, all of you. You’ve got competition starting in just over four hours.”

* * *

Yuuri ends up putting in his headphones and going to find a quiet corner to eat his lunch, once the fuss settles, politely telling anyone who approaches that he needs to speak to Victor. He needs to refocus on his skating and concentrate on the performance coming up.

Victor picks up as soon as he calls.

“I was wondering why you hadn’t called yet!”

“I just stopped to have lunch.”

“What have you got?”

“Chicken and some sort of salad.” Yuuri examines the package. “Minako picked it up for me earlier. She knows what’s in my meal plan.”

“I just finished breakfast,” says Victor. “I managed to sneak some jam past Yakov; he’s fussing over Mila today and wasn’t watching as closely.”

“You _just_ won Nationals!” Yuuri says with a laugh.

“I know! But he’s convinced that I’ve been off my training diet too long and need reminding about how to eat like an athlete. Anyway. How do you feel after your warm up? I could mostly only find videos of your various jumps; nobody seemed to be streaming today.”

“Okay, I guess. My run through went smoothly and there wasn’t anything in particular that felt off.”

“You guess?”

Yuuri sighs. “It’s been an odd day.”

“Why?” asks Victor. He sounds protective. “Has something upset you?”

“No. Well, it shouldn’t have. Everyone’s been so nice and supportive. They all are so pleased with my results. Nobody seems to remember last year.”

Victor is silent for a moment. “Yuuri. Have you considered that people might want you to do well and hope for the best for you?”

“That’s what people have been saying the whole day! Everyone’s been _so_ pleased and _so_ excited - half of the competition wants me to pass on their congratulations to you, by the way - and it’s been a bit overwhelming.”

“Because this is normally the part where it becomes all too stressful, right,” says Victor thoughtfully. “When the expectations get too high?”

“I don’t want to invite bad luck!” Yuuri protests.

Victor sighs at the end of the line. “I’m sorry I’m not in Japan with you right now. I wanted to be there to show you how proud I am of you and how amazing you are. But because I couldn’t be there, I’m so glad that everyone else stepped up to let you know.

“You are an amazing skater, Yuuri, and Japan is lucky to have you represent them and I’m luckier to know that we are going to continue to do great things together.”

“Victor!”

“And because of that, I want to see the gold medal that you’ll be bringing with you to St Petersburg,” Victor continues. “You still haven’t won a single one for me, you know, and I just won Russian Nationals for you with less than two weeks training.”

Yuuri laughs, startled. “You won that medal for me?”

“You’re the one who convinced me to go back to competition. Obviously it’s yours. So really, you need to be skating for _my_ gold medal today; your one is here waiting for you in Russia. With me.”

“That’s a terrible argument,” Yuuri tells Victor, but he doesn’t really mind. “You’re Russian; you can’t have a Japanese Nationals medal.”

“So you want TWO gold medals? So greedy, Yuuri.”

“No, you have your Nationals medal. I’ve got to win mine.”

“Well, why don’t you focus on that, then,” says Victor fondly. “After all, you’ve just told me that all of Japan is waiting to see it.”

* * *

Yuri on Ice is a story of where he’s come from, and where he’s going. 

After his world-shattering performance of his free skate as a thanks to Victor, to explain to him exactly what their partnership meant to Yuuri and how it felt to have the skill to match Victor’s own programs, Yuuri had wondered if there really was still more emotion to mine from the music.

He’d thought no other performance of the piece could ever quite match the desperation and longing of the Grand Prix Final, as he strove to prove to Victor why the figure skating world could not lose him as an inspiration. It would be an echo, a memory of his greatest performance.

And yet here he was, just a short fortnight later, still finding new ways to connect to the music.

This time it was not just for Victor, who already had a new gold medal of his own, and his own triumphant return to the ice.

This time it was also for Japan, the country that had welcomed him home.

For his mother and father and Mari, at home at the onsen looking after Makkachin, willingly helping to pack Victor and Yuuri’s belongings for the move to Russia.

For Minako, who’s always believed in and supported his career, who put aside her classes to be here today and make sure he had a coach assisting him through the competition.

For the other Japanese skaters; those he’s competed against for years as well as the younger generation just coming through, who have put their trust and belief in him as their International representative.

For the fans who are still in the crowd, somehow supporting him, despite everything.

As he stands at centre ice, waiting for the music to start, Yuuri reflects on how far he is from the nightmare performance a year ago.

His program today is the layout he initially planned for the Grand Prix Final, with the triple loop, lutz and axel intact. Three jumps for the Nishigoris, for the three little girls sitting in the audience watching him, who know every beat of his routine and have tried to follow him around the ice, copying the steps. For Yuuko and Takeshi, who accepted him back to Ice Castle Hasetsu as if he had never left and let him slot back into their lives. 

As the music flows around him, Yuuri dances for the crowd watching him and him alone. As personal and solo as figure skating is as a sport, competitions are also for the audience and here at Nationals, they’re for the country as a whole.

Three quads for Japan, of three different types, to show them how far he’s come and the new skills he’s achieved.

Three quads: two he’d failed to land last year and one that hadn’t even been a dream yet. 

As he works through the skate, he can feel the energy of the crowd, hear the screams and cheers for each completed element, pushing him onwards. He’d thought he’d lost their faith and support, yet here they remain, still calling him Japan’s Ace and believing that he can win.

Till at last… the quadruple flip. The jump that’s still for Victor, that will _always_ be for Victor, every single time he performs it.

It’s a clean landing, well clear of the ice, and he’s into the final spin and finishes. His final pose still points to a camera, his message to Victor who is watching far away in Russia. His bows, however, are to the audience, as he watches in disbelief as the ice fills with flowers and toys.

* * *

Yuuri wins Nationals. The over 60 point gap to silver is ridiculously flattering, though you can never really trust national results; Yuuri had stared incredulously at some of the GOEs in the breakdown. Several of the judges were clearly not taking any risks over who they felt the JSF should be sending to Worlds this season after last year’s disaster and had awarded points liberally. Hiroto, who seems remarkably composed about his silver medal, gives a sigh and then grins up at Yuuri. “Ahh, the world is back to normal,” he says cheekily, as they hold up their medals for photos. “You’d better get us at least two Olympic spots at Worlds, Yuuri, after Yass and I put in so much work last year to hold on to that second Worlds spot.” 

Yass, waving his bouquet at the crowd, calmly replies “I’d ask for three Olympic spots, but honestly I’ll be happy if I get a Four Continents slot this year. Last year was more than enough for me.”

Yuuri bows to them both. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you earlier, but thank you for preserving Japan’s standings at Worlds last year.”

Hiroto waves it away with one hand. “You say that, Yuuri, yet on the international skate of my life, I still didn’t outscore your Grand Prix Final results that year and barely scraped 11th. The JSF might as well have sent you.”

“But they didn’t, and you both stepped up.”

“Never again. I’m quite happy with worrying about making the Free Skate at Four Continents and Worlds; knowing we both HAD to make the free and one of us needed to try to crack top 10 was stressful enough,” says Yass cheerily. 

“It still means a lot to me,” says Yuuri formally. 

“And having you bring home a silver medal from the Grand Prix Final for Japan means a lot to us all,” says Hiroto. “We’re proud to have you representing our country.”

“All right, then. Get up here with me, so the media can take the photo.”

As Hiroto and Yass step up to bracket Yuuri at the top of the podium, wrap their arms around his waist, all three of them smiling for the cameras and waving a free hand, the crowd roars even louder.

There are still press conferences to come, sponsors to talk to, an exhibition to skate. It’ll be close to a week until his flight to Russia, when he’ll be back by Victor’s side. But here, in this moment, Yuuri feels on top of the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of those stories that just wouldn't stop growing. 
> 
> Initially, I just wanted to tell a little story about Yuuri at Nationals, finishing his Free Skate and discovering that, instead of needing to slope off quietly to watch Victor's Short Program by himself, the other Japanese skaters had organised a viewing party for him, as Victor was now one of "theirs".
> 
> Then I looked at the competition schedules for 2016 Russian and Japanese Nationals, realised that not only did the timing not work, but that Victor started competing a whole day before Yuuri, and decided that I had to rebuild the story from the ground up. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the result.
> 
> NB: I have a [DVD Commentary](https://zahri.dreamwidth.org/2840.html) track for this story if you're interested in the details.


End file.
